Sunday, November 3, 2013

Welcome to Blog4Peace 2013! This is my peace post. Please leave your links in the Mr. Linky section below so that others may visit your blogs and pages. We love your comments as well! Tag me on FB or post your globe on your profile page, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. Blog for peace wherever you are online. You can see a steady stream of peace globes streaming live on my FB wall @ AND The BlogBlast Facebook Fan Page. What a beautiful sight to see! It's going to be an amazing day. I can't wait to see your peace globes and read your powerful words.

Dona Nobis Pacem ~ Blog4Peace 2013The Woman of Leaves

I was sitting under this tree you see...when it all came flooding back. The plow. The dirt. The potatoes. The tiller. And Papa.

It was the strangest feeling. One minute I was sitting in the sun. The next I was sitting in a shadow. Two o'clock this afternoon. On a sunny autumn day full of color, the brilliance of orange and red, yellow clusters of joy hanging from leaf-leaving branches preparing their limbs for winter. Me? I was preparing for the muse. I needed to write a peace post.

There is some kind of magic that happens in Bloggingham on the Eve of BlogBlast For Peace. A story unfolds, pieces of puzzles fit I never knew were missing, ghosts appear, pansies are potted, dolls are unearthed and Papa....he is here too. Tomorrow would have been his 97th birthday, but lets not worry about Papa's age. He is about to take you - and me - on a ride.

I am worried that one night the world will simply go to sleep and never wake up.

Someone, somewhere, in a fit of hateful violence will decide to blow up what's left of all the places not already blown up. Because one by one, nation by nation, we are losing ground. And space. Rivers and mountains and clean drinking water. And peaceful places to sit in the world. We need trees and oxygen, nature and creatures running amok. That's the way the world was created. Now we have created something else. We are losing perspective and respect for the sanctity and the dignity of human life. We find those things in Art. In dance. In music. In poetry. In nature. In faith. And here's the redemption: we find it in each other.

Why do we run away from our own salvation?

Sometimes I don't know if I shake the tree or the tree shakes me.

But I do tend to stay in leaves.

It is no secret I talk to trees. My most trusted trees have already told the whole of Bloggingham Forest (you just can't trust trees these days...) and those trees have spilled it to the squirrels and they run endlessly back and forth with the nuts of the world. I tell you it's stressful keeping up with all the tree drama.

But they are such good listeners. And today they got an earful.

I remembered the things in my life that mattered. I could hear them whispering in the sunny breeze; the memories and the voices of people who love me for me. The people whose tethers of truth are strongly rooted in my very heart and will not let me go. The experiences that really shape a person's life are either one of two things: moments of love or moments of pain. Each place leads to a ledge of vulnerability. I get to choose how each dangling space of time will affect my life and therefore, how it will affect those I love and how it will be applied to my actions in the world at large. So do you.

I realized I'd become a woman of leaves.

Because all those who came before left me with exactly what I needed.

When I was a little girl, my Papa had a garden tiller that plowed the little field next to his little house. I always wanted to be where he was so he built a wooden seat in front of the handle bars of that tiller, strapped me in with a soft leather harness, and let me ride with him. I remember his laughing face as he tried to catch kisses in the garden while he plowed, bouncing along we'd go through the cucumber path. The dirt would fly up in his face and his over-sized crippled feet would stumble on rocks and uneven ground. I don't know how he managed to steer the old tiller and keep me from falling. But I didn't care how dirty I got or how rocky the ride. And he didn't care that it was difficult. All that mattered was that we were together. It was safe and unsafe, bumpy and glorious. Turning over potatoes and tomatoes, dirt and love.

During those rides he was sowing seeds of relationship and connection. Had I not been baptized in that unconditional love of his, I know my life's journey would have been incredibly different. I got to ride on a cucumber plow with Papa! There was no finer place to be.
I wonder where love that deep comes from....

Today my world doesn't feel safe. Does yours?

I want that elusive world peace just like you do. But it's not going to happen in my personal village of trees unless I make the right choices. So.
I will choose to plow uneven fields with as much love as I can muster. I will carve out safe places for people who need it. I will try to love my neighbor and follow the Golden Rule. The materials I need are not hard to find. I already have them. And I won't need any money. All I have to do is plow up the ground and plant.

If I could choose to become a woman who only runs to the safety of quilts instead of a bed of leaves, I would choose the latter and leave the pretty patchwork behind.

Because there is no more beautiful place in the world than to understand that it is not about the leaving behind of my comforts anymore, it's about how much of myself I am willing to scatter around in that pile of kaleidoscope leaves. There is beauty in the unknown. There is joy in the cobwebs of Earth. There is freedom in giving. And there is no safer place than to wallow around in a boudoir of acorns not knowing which nut you might find, but knowing you'll be OK if you do.
The safe place is not a place at all. The safe place is me.

Find your tree.

Make a stand.

You'll be alright.

Because your safe place is you

And I need you.

That is why we are here.

Please leave your link in the Mr. Linky below. You can even put your FB profile link in if you don't have a blog. Thank you for reading my words. Thank you for blogging for peace. Thank you for sharing your powerful words with the world. You are an amazing community of writers and artists. I am honored to know all of you.

So many lovely thoughts in your writing. They swing from beauties of the past to questions of the present so freely. My favourite thought must be: "how each dangling space of time will affect my life..."A wonderful post for this special day.

Mimi, this is exquisite… thank you for hosting, for gathering us together to sing our song of peace in magnificent harmony.

Please consider yourself officially invited to participate this year's 5th Annual Gratitude (word) Quilt. Instructions (it is very simple) and a link that explains the origin of the word quilt can be found at the top of my blog. In past years there have been participants from every continent except Antarctica. I hope you'll join us:-)

This is such a beautiful day, Mimi! Thank you for all you do. Here I am at http://ask-fisher.com/dona-nobis-pacem-2/#sthash.zeTUE2as.dpbsand http://ask-fisher.blogspot.com/2013/11/dona-nobis-pacem-pt-2.htmPeace and love, Jobi and Fisher

love that second to last picture - the shot straight up the trunk of the tree! lovely, Mimi, I will have my friend-ravens drop your squirrels an acorn from my neck of the woods, so we can play in the leaf pile together. peace.

A wonderful post for peace, Mimi and a wonderful tribute to your Dad. I'm sure he knows and is very proud of you. What you said about safety especially spoke to me. Thank you. Love from Sicily, Pat and Simi the dog.xx woof!

Hi Mimi (Mrs. Jim is Mimi to the grandchildren) ~~ I loved your writing and could identify with you beyond the name. Mr Dad lived to be 97, he died in 2007.

My second poem today (not written specifically for blog4peace like the first) was about my Mom finding her peace, being escorted to Heaven by an angel. That may be the only peace we will find in our lifetimes...

My winter soul has been melted by the colorful touching reflectiveness of past and present in your post, as your resilient efforts to promote Peace throughout the years continues to give me hope that one day there will be Peace! Thank you for you Mimi!